Local TV showed people in shelters watching the game, before which there was a moment of silence, and each fan in the Chiba cheering section held up signs of support for the disaster areas which said, “Stay Strong Japan.”

“Despite the difficult conditions, we are able to open the season because everybody helped us to do it,” said Rakuten infielder Kazuo Matsui, a former major leaguer in the United States. “I want to carry this feeling of appreciation for the whole year by playing baseball.

No one who hasn’t been through what the people of Japan have been though can say anything particularly intelligent about all of this. But I do wonder — like some in yesterday’s article wondered — if those who are still struggling to simply survive don’t feel left behind. Left behind by people striving to return to normalcy, but whose normalcy wasn’t nearly as disrupted as that of others.